


anchor, set

by rynleaf



Series: omnipresence [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Getting Together, Implied Violence, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mentions of PTSD, Modern Thedas, house!au, vague mentions of military affairs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-28 15:57:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20428574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rynleaf/pseuds/rynleaf
Summary: In which Zevran moves to Ferelden not entirely by choice, Alistair listens to what he doesn't say, and cheese is mentioned. Twice.





	anchor, set

**Author's Note:**

> This is a disclaimer: I have no in-depth knowledge about any military affairs that didn't come from watching TV and reading military sci-fi. I don't really go into specifics, but please for the duration of this fic, suspend your disbelief! 
> 
> Counts as a prequel to a kind of omnipresence, but works as a stand-alone just fine.
> 
> Unbeta-ed.

1.

“It will be good for me,” Zevran says, and smiles at the folded up screen in the corner just past Dr. Alessio’s shoulder. It’s made of some woven fibre, uneven. He counts three straight rows between each irregular rhomboid shape. “All that sky. Trees. Dogs. You’ve been recommending a change of scenery anyway, have you not?”

“I was thinking, perhaps a holiday,” Dr. Alessio says. “Taking a long weekend on the seaside, going to a theme park. Maker forbid, how about moving out of those dreadful government apartments at last?” 

Zevran leans back in the armchair and raises an eyebrow.

“Is sarcasm a policy-approved method of extracting information?” 

“Since you’re not cleared to tell me anything of actual importance anyway,” Dr. Alessio remarks with some bitterness. Then he shakes his head. “I apologise, I know it’s above your head.”

“Protocol is protocol,” Zevran says lightly, and glances at the papers laying between them on the low coffee table. The top page reads, under the standard Antivan Military header: _ EXIT POLICY: Psychological Evaluation. _Under it, his name and the date from six months ago. 

The majority of the document itself is redacted.

“Besides, isn’t that exactly what I’m doing?” he says then, “Moving out of my, what is it you said, ‘dreadful’ government supported environs?” 

“To Ferelden.”

“Charming place.”

“You hate the cold.”

“They have sheep. Sheep make excellent sweaters.”

Dr. Alessio sighs. Zevran shakes his hand when he leaves, doesn’t think about the word ‘voluntary’ and the shape of his name on a dotted line, and leaves the building without once looking back. 

2.

This is what compensation pay and military retirement gets for an exiled man of twenty-nine (give or take, Zevran thinks): a year long lease for a flat on the eastern side of Redcliffe right above a pub, a park within walking distance, and six months until his savings run out. He cultivates his reputation as an eccentric Antivan bachelor and develops a taste for ale. 

If anybody asked, he would say that he is living the life he always wanted. They used to dream of freedom as an abstract, nebulous concept: you can choose to leave any time you wish, the Crow Masters said, but the truth was somewhat more complicated. That is the nature of secret government projects, after all. 

All things considered, it scarcely matters now. It isn’t as if anybody asks anyway.

Zevran stretches out on his lumpy couch then, examines the water stains on his ceiling, and thinks: _ this is mine _. The first home he ever chose for himself. This new life, unregulated and unsupervised, wanders into the corners of the place--a rug pilfered from a charity shop, old-fashioned plates in vivid patterns, civilian clothes carelessly strewn over the back of the lopsided armchair by the window. He adopts a drooping basil plant always on the verge of permanent death, pinches off a yellow-edged leaf and adds it to the tomato sauce that never quite tastes the same as it did back in Antiva city. 

_ Home _ , he thinks tentatively, and relishes the ache of missing the bustle and the sunshine, the smell of curry, coffee, and leather. He makes lists of the things he will never get back. He makes lists of things he will never _ want _ back. He can never quite get them to balance.

Months pass like this, then: they go with furtive naps in the lopsided armchair, standing under the shelter of tall chestnut trees while the Justinian rain pours on, and drinking cheap ale in the _ Three Bearded Mabari _ on weekday afternoons in the company of grizzly steel industry workers. The Rivaini bartender gives him a sideways look and says:

“You need a fucking job.”

Dr. Alessio suggested him to think about the future at his own pace. He decides not thinking about it at all is as good a place to start as any. It is quiet, really, this life--that is what turns around in his head one Friday night halfway through Harvestmere, as he counts the change from the _ Mabari’ _ s till: _ life is quiet. Life is quiet today _.

Until the next morning he makes it to the cheese counter at the Redcliffe market later than usual, and has a near-physical altercation with a school teacher (which is a gross exaggeration, Alistair will later say) over a piece of _ cabrales _ cheese. The rest, as they say, is history. 

3.

Let us consider love at first sight, for a moment. It might come as a glance through the aquarium glass, as a dance with a stranger, as your head spins dizzily at the smile of the cashier at the corner cafe. It is comforting to daydream about meeting the loves of our lives by accident. People fear, above all, the crushing weight of loneliness: _ you will grow old alone _, our mothers warn us, and so we fear and hope for companionship that will chase that lonesome darkness away at equal measure. 

Zevran is, in his heart of hearts, a romantic.

“All right,” the stranger says. They stop short at opposite sides of the same market stall. The last piece of cabrales sits between Orlesian and Anderfells cheeses: it is greenish, lumpy, and unimpressive. 

The stranger is anything but. 

“I suppose,” Zevran says, “I suppose now comes the point where we both attempt to out-polite each other according to age-old Fereldan custom, while the cheese gets carried off by an enterprising pensioner from under both our noses?”

That wins a laugh. The man puts his hands on his hips, fishnet bag of carrots and whatever else hanging off the crook of his elbow like a poster promoting Fereldan domestic scenes: all he’s missing is a mabari or two, and a gaggle of children. 

(No ring. Zevran cannot quite stop himself from checking.)

“I guess you aren’t willing to give it up out of the goodness of your heart, are you?” The stranger says.

“No chance,” Zevran says and smiles, a little sharp, a little mean. The man’s laugh is really quite nice. Bashful. Pink-faced. Zevran is, in his heart of hearts, a romantic--but before that, he is a man who appreciates broad shoulders and faded jeans hugging sturdy thighs like a dream.

Oh, what the hell.

“Tell you what,” he says, and flashes his most winning smile. “Have you ever tasted proper Antivan _ patatas con cabrales _?”

“Can’t say I have, no.”

“What do you say about Tuesday night?”

An enterprising potato rolls out of the man’s bag and promptly gets stuck under the cheese counter as he reaches to rub his neck with both hands at the same time. He clears his throat. Clears his throat again. 

“Well now,” he says weakly, “I don’t even know your name. It’s not that you’re not _ nice _, you know, I’m not… well.”

Zevran grins, takes the man’s right hand and shakes it. “Zevran Arainai. Tuesday, at the _ Three Bearded Mabari. _ Shall we say seven?”

“Tuesday is a school night,” the man says, somewhat half-hearted. “Alistair. My name is Alistair.” 

Zevran snatches the piece of cheese, hands the amused woman behind the counter a handful of coins, and turns at the sound of a muffled squawk. 

“Seven o’clock,” he says.

On Tuesday night, three important things happen: Zevran discovers that he can’t resist a man dressed in a soft flannel shirt, Alistair makes obscene noises at the cheese smothered potatoes, and a kiss on the cheek as greeting turns out to be the most erotic thing Zevran has ever experienced. 

“I can’t believe this hasn’t ended in disaster yet,” Alistair says, slow and content from the third mug of ale Isabela slid in front of him ‘on the house’. Her smile is positively evil. 

“Oh?” Zevran says, and stretches his legs out under the table. Their knees bump. Alistair drags his fingers around the rim of his glass. 

“This. You know. I’m not very good at… _ dating. _ Especially not strangers. Believe it or not, it’s not something I’d usually… well. I am known to be the ‘responsible type’. By which they usually mean the boring type. Friends. Who needs them,” Alistair waves his hand around in dismissal, sniffs, then takes a drink. Zevran leans in, chin resting on his clasped hands. 

“Date, huh_. _Capital ‘D’? The works?”

“I mean…” Flustered Alistair is quickly becoming Zevran’s favourite Alistair. “I suppose, well, you _ did _ just, you know, ask me? For dinner? In front of the cheese lady. The cheese lady said it was definitely a date. Was she wrong? Was _ I _wrong?”

“You asked the cheese trader for advice?” Zevran asks, and it’s hopeless--he laughs as he takes Alistair’s left hand, drags a finger over the underside of his wrist, and adds, “What did she say?”

Alistair blushes an even more brilliant shade of red, and ducks his head between his shoulders. 

“She gave me a glass of water. And said to have fun. On my date.” 

“And?”

“And what?”

Zevran leans even closer. Their foreheads are almost touching. 

“Are you having fun?”

Alistair’s expression cycles through a series of complicated emotions, then settles on a squint-eyed smile that does things to Zevran’s stomach. 

“Yes. As it happens.”

“Get a room,” Isabela stage-whispers as she glides by with a tray of chips and cheese. 

“Your friends are idiots,” Zevran murmurs into Alistair’s ear, and delights in the embarrassed chuckle that follows.

He doesn’t panic until after they say goodbye--fifteen minutes past eleven and the sky is overcast, rain is falling in sparse drops and he cannot help it. The feeling carries the flavour of failure, the smell of home base just outside Antiva city, the sound of a bullet hitting flesh. 

“This was a _ date _date,” he says to Isabela and bangs his head on the bar. 

“As opposed to?” Isabela carries on cutting even pieces of lemon and lime without even turning, the heartless monster. 

“I don’t know. A sex date. A no-strings date. Definitely not a feelings-date.”

“Oh, honey,” Isabela says unsympathetically. “Are you panicking because of your abandonment issues, or because you’re cagey about the murder-and-spying part of your past?”

“Who needs friends indeed,” Zevran mutters under his nose. Isabela whacks him on the neck with her kitchen towel.

“That part of your life is over,” she says. _ I know a Crow when I see one, _ she said months earlier in the _ Mabari’ _s back room, not even looking at him as she signed his paperwork and pointed at the dotted line. “I’m not saying it didn’t give you a ton of very interesting complexes, but, well. The gun and muffler part stayed with the military, no?”

“He is a primary school teacher,” Zevran says miserably. 

“A very, _ very _ climbable primary school teacher,” Isabela drawls. Zevran squints, but doesn’t bother raising his head.

“Hands off, you monster.”

The sound of Isabela’s gurgling laughter makes everything seem brighter, somehow. 

4.

And so Zevran Arainai, assassin, Lieutenant Crow honourably discharged and swept under a rug to avoid scandals about child soldiers and the merit of state murder; does the most ordinary thing: he falls in love. 

Here’s a truth, then. Alistair is six years old when a retired soldier lifts him out of the foster system, calls him son, and gives him a home most six year old boys only dream of. Endless summers under the blue sky. Horse-riding. Eating sun-warm apricots off the tree. 

Here is another: Zevran cannot find the right time to tell this particular truth, the dorm rooms and his first kill, the military scandal, his voluntary exile. 

(That word still bothers him, ‘voluntary’. As if they gave them a real choice in the matter.)

“Spare bedding is on the bottom shelf, the big, black bag!” Zevran yells from the kitchen, listens for Alistair’s mutter of acknowledgement, and continues stirring the cheese sauce. It’s a state holiday in the name of some Fereldan martyr or another, and the long weekend is most welcome: they barely left the bed for the past two days, and the aches and twinges of thorough exercise make Zevran sigh through a pleased smile. The pasta is drained. The oven is almost warm enough. 

“Alistair?” Zevran calls out, and wipes his hand on a kitchen towel. No reply. Zevran steps around the corner and nudges the bedroom door all the way open. “Alistair? Are you--”

The sight of the black and gold uniform spread out on the bed makes the breath stick in his throat. 

“I thought it was the bedding,” Alistar says, clutching the garbage bag the uniform was wrapped into, tucked in the back of the wardrobe, forgotten.

Zevran takes a deep breath. The golden-edged crow pin winks at him in the bright lamplight. 

“I can’t say I know much about Antivan military,” Alistair goes on, “I imagine something must have happened, you’re only… well. I. Well.”

“Stop,” Zevran says, and he finds himself surprised at how calm he sounds--_ control is value, _ he thinks, and part of him wants to laugh. “Please put that back. Dinner is almost done.”

He doesn’t listen to the rustle of plastic as he pours sauce over the pasta, ignores the wink of the kitchen knife and his brain calculating exit routes, through the window, the roof, the back door. Unseen. His hands are shaking. 

“Hey,” Alistair says from the doorway, uncertain. Zevran drops the roll of kitchen foil. “Hey,” he says again and he moves closer, careful to stay in his line of sight with his hands loose at his side. His expression is kind, and Zevran cannot bear it. 

“I killed my first mark when I was ten,” he says. 

“Okay,” Alistair says. 

“It was remarkably easy.” 

“Okay.”

“Is that _ it?” _

Alistair lifts his hand slowly enough so Zevran can step aside, catch his hand, _ run _. He doesn’t. The grip on his shoulder is reassuring.

“A heads up would have been nice,” Alistair says, “something like, ‘Hey idiot, careful how you tread this particular minefield!’”

“You’re not an idiot,” Zevran bristles automatically. Alistair squeezes his shoulder. ”And I’m _ not _ a minefield. Murderer however? Yes. Absolutely.”

“You should talk to my dad sometime,” Alistair says, as if he hasn’t heard. “He has some very interesting opinions about the military, and how they treat their retired soldiers. He gets into quite a rage about it. Very entertaining, I think, even if Auntie Maud regularly threatens to break the soup pot on his head if he gets into it around the dinner table one more time--not like it ever stops him. You’d like him, I think.”

“Alistair.”

“I knew there was something,” Alistair continues, “I’m not completely blind, you know? But I figured you’d tell me when you’re ready.” 

“_ Alistair _.”

“Yes?”

Zevran looks up at him, his open expression, the crinkles around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His reading glasses left little indentations at both sides of his nose. Zevran tries to think of something to say, but his brain is running on empty, a feeling something like shame but not quite making his head spin. 

“Is that it?” he asks quietly.

“Is it okay if I hug you now?” Alistair asks instead of a reply.

The macaroni is delicious as always. 

Sometimes, on the especially bad days, Zevran likes going out to Lakeside, gaze toward the North and think of General Gazza and disgraced Crow Master Arainai.

(“It is for the best,” the general said, clapping him on the shoulder. Zevran wondered at the time where the others ended up: if they gently pushed all of them out of Antiva for their own good, if the quiet dissolution of the Programme left anybody else so strangely bereft and yet relieved to leave, as it did him. 

Even if he was stupid enough to make contact, he wouldn’t know how.)

“You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met,” Alistair says that night, sipping his ale and bumping his knee against his. 

“Are you professing your love to me, my dear Alistair?” Zevran says with barely concealed fondness. 

“Yeah,” Alistair says and smiles, slow like molasses, and Zevran laughs with him.

“I want to keep you forever,” Alistair adds, and that makes Zevran laugh even harder: at his honest, Fereldan face, his reading glasses knocked askew.

“Okay,” Zevran says. 

“Okay?” Alistair asks. 

“Okay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :)


End file.
